autochk program not found - skipping autocheck

This Win7 error is seen a few seconds after the four glowing squares appear. It lasts for 15 seconds and you then see a brief BSOD followed by a restart.

DaleHolden recently experienced this issue when using Ghost. I saw it about 15 months ago and I wasn't using Ghost. I saw it again today after a Ghost Copy Drive. It occurred when I tried to boot back into the source partition. Dale and I were using Win7.

This boot error occurs in WinXP if you try to boot a hidden WinXP NTFS partition. If you try to boot a hidden Win7 NTFS partition it hangs on the four glowing squares.

Dale and I have searched Google and there is no solution for this error in Win7. Well none that we found and we did try hard.

Today I tried...

Checking that the partition wasn't hidden. It wasn't.

mountmgr.sys wasn't missing

Sliding the partition didn't help

Win7 repair didn't help

Getting desperate, so I tried tbosdt and found Win7 didn't have a drive letter. I assigned C: and Win7 booted.

In Win7 if you go into [MountedDevices] and rename

\DosDevices\C: to \DosDevices\

you will get "autochk program not found - skipping autocheck" on the next boot.

I think this is the cause of the error. An absent drive letter for the Win7 partition.

Replies

Re: autochk program not found - skipping autocheck

This Win7 error is seen a few seconds after the four glowing squares appear. It lasts for 15 seconds and you then see a brief BSOD followed by a restart.

DaleHolden recently experienced this issue when using Ghost. I saw it about 15 months ago and I wasn't using Ghost. I saw it again today after a Ghost Copy Drive. It occurred when I tried to boot back into the source partition. Dale and I were using Win7.

This boot error occurs in WinXP if you try to boot a hidden WinXP NTFS partition. If you try to boot a hidden Win7 NTFS partition it hangs on the four glowing squares.

Dale and I have searched Google and there is no solution for this error in Win7. Well none that we found and we did try hard.

Today I tried...

Checking that the partition wasn't hidden. It wasn't.

mountmgr.sys wasn't missing

Sliding the partition didn't help

Win7 repair didn't help

Getting desperate, so I tried tbosdt and found Win7 didn't have a drive letter. I assigned C: and Win7 booted.

In Win7 if you go into [MountedDevices] and rename

\DosDevices\C: to \DosDevices\

you will get "autochk program not found - skipping autocheck" on the next boot.

I think this is the cause of the error. An absent drive letter for the Win7 partition.

Re: autochk program not found - skipping autocheck

I restored a WinXP image and then a Win7 image containing Ghost 15 to HD0. There was no boot manager. Win7 was the Active partition and it saw WinXP as F: drive.

Copy Drive was performed on Win7, copying to a second HD. When the copy had completed I checked Disk Management and the Second HD was still Online. But [MountedDevices] was very concerning. \DosDevices\C: was pointing to the partition signature of Win7 on the second HD. There was no partition signature for Win7 on HD0.

When I tried to boot Win7 I got the error.

I booted from a Win7 disk and loaded a Hive. In [MountedDevices] \DosDevices\C: was pointing to Win7 on the second HD. There was no entry for Win 7 on HD0. I did nothing to the registry and restarted into BIBM. The Win7 partition on the second HD was deleted. Trying to boot Win7 again resulted in the same error.

I booted from a Win7 disk and loaded a Hive. In [MountedDevices] \DosDevices\C: was pointing to Win7 on the nonexistent partition on the second HD. I deleted [MountedDevices] and Win7 loaded normally.

So the error occurred because there was no partition signature and therefore no drive letter for Win7 on HD0. This was due to Ghost 15 Copy Drive "editing" [MountedDevices].

Re: autochk program not found - skipping autocheck

Actually I knew that error could be caused in XP for drive letter problems but I never thought about it for Windows 7.

The registry entry for when the "dirty bit" is set to run chkdsk is:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager

BootExecute = autocheck autochk *

Windows tries to find autochk.exe using the system variable path and thats set with another variable "

%SystemRoot%\system32"

If Windows boots as the wrong letter that would become: wrong letter\Windows\System32\autochk.exe

I always figue the "dirty bit" got set because when the system boots into the wrong letter, it either hangs or does not show a start/shutdown button so people would be inclined to push the reset button if they don't know how to get the shutdown through the task launcher.

Re: autochk program not found - skipping autocheck

I just deleted the WinXP partition and then did Copy Drive on Win7, the only OS present. [MountedDevices] was checked after the copy and it was normal. \DosDevices\C: pointed to the Win7 partition signature on HD0. Win7 loaded OK.

Deric has been telling us this for over a year. Ghost 15 Copy Drive can't handle a multi-boot if the OS see each other.

Re: autochk program not found - skipping autocheck

If someone finds this thread from a Google search, here is the fix....

Boot from the Win7 diskAt the "Install Windows" screen press SHIFT F10 to get a command windowType "regedit" (without the "") and press EnterClick to Select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEClick File, Load HiveClick the drop down arrow in "Look in"Browse to C:\Windows\System32\config (there will be a C: drive as the WinPE is assigning drive letters)Select SYSTEM and click OpenIn Key Name type "letter"OKClick the + next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE in the left paneClick the + next to "letter" in the left paneSelect MountedDevices in the "letter" groupSelect all values in the right hand pane and press Delete on the keyboardYesSelect "letter" in the left hand paneClick File, Unload HiveYesClose Registry Editor and the Command WindowClose the "Install Windows" screenYesRemove the Win7 disk and boot into Win7 which will assign drive letters.